Sweating the Small Stuff
After three months of trying to wean ourselves from using the car, I have learned a few lessons regarding the challenges of living a mostly car-free life. Any trip that involves just me is fairly simple to substitute a bike or walking for the car. I’m able to bike most distances comfortably and, given my commitment to this initiative, have a greater willingness to endure nasty weather than the rest of my family. Short trips, especially in nice weather, are always warmly received by the rest of my family. Trips without time constraints also generate less resistance than when we’re in a rush. Thankfully, the frequent presence of at least one of these conditions has allowed us to eliminate nearly all of our short car trips.
Nearly all is not nearly enough for me. Seeking to maximize our Car Avoidance Ratio (CAR), I analyze every potential trip to figure out how to avoid using the car. To my family’s great annoyance, I usually come up with some plan for almost every trip, and if I throw in a stop for food or a treat, I can usually sway most fencesitters. There is, however, a list of trips that prove beyond my powers of planning and persuasion. These nettlesome trips include:
Shopping excursions over 10 miles round trip – My strategy here has been to argue vociferously that these purchases are entirely unnecessary and that whatever we need can be purchased online or locally.
Date nights – A bike ride with your wife on a beautiful summer evening certainly adds a little spark to an evening out. Riding in the rain on a cold fall evening could suck the romance out of a newlywed couple on their honeymoon. And the bus can be a moment killer as well. The carless date night, however, does allow for more pinots, pints or pear martinis, whatever your tastes may be.
Dinner parties – I seem to recall pizza delivery guys on bikes with a basket that could carry pizzas and other entrees right side up. I need to get one of these baskets. Otherwise, trying to carry a warm casserole under your arm while biking to a dinner party is a recipe for disaster. I also need to invent a way to prevent helmet head – my wife’s not too fond of showing up a party with ridges in her hair.
Out of town guests – This category causes me the most heartburn because even our no-brainer walking trips are abandoned because our guests aren’t able to walk to our neighborhood haunts and haven’t ridden a bike in years. Having a few inexpensive adult bikes and helmets around for guests might help eliminate at least one excuse for driving. Or maybe we should only associate with people like these recent guests.
Suburban soccer games – Despite its status as a working class sport throughout the world, Americans seem to believe that soccer can only be played on pristine suburban fields. Like some sort of brainwashing ritual, city kids are forced to have their minds dulled as they whiz past strip malls on their way to games. Since my son’s games are past the reach of bikes and public transportation, I’ve resorted to carpools to ease my conscience.
Any thoughts on how to tackle these challenging trips would be much appreciated.
Although I’ve stopped reporting on our weekly mileage, I would still like, in the interest of full disclosure, to make it available online. My quick solution is this Google documents link. To access the document, you are required to have a Google account, which for some is the equivalent of stepping over to the dark side. I will try to have a more agnostic link in the near future. Keep in mind as you review the mileage that I am taking a long term approach to convincing my wife to give up her new car commute. Just yesterday, the kids and I took our light rail to meet her at her office and she was pleasantly surprised at how quick our trip was. So we’re making progress.
Lastly, some topics have no apparent connection to our dependence on cars until you look more closely. Daylight Savings Time (DST), which ended on Sunday, is one of those topics. For most of us, DST is an accepted part of our lives and even an anticipated signal of the changing of the seasons. In reality, the notion of changing our clocks is fraught with controversy, especially in light of recent legislative action to extend DST by almost a month. One of the primary arguments in favor of DST is that extending daylight hours in the evening saves electricity use. Michael Downing, however, argues in his book, Spring Forward, that any savings in electricity use is offset by, surprise, surprise, additional petroleum use. What else would a nation of car addicts do with more daylight? Go driving, of course. I really haven’t been too concerned about DST in the past, but if it will get people out of their cars, I’m all for its repeal. Sign me up for the march on Washington.